Fox News Parent NewsCorp May Face Corruption Investigation 145
rtfa-troll writes "The Guardian reports that News Corporation may face FCPA investigations after an 'official of the British ministry of defence' was charged 'for allegedly receiving £100,000 from Murdoch's tabloid newspapers.' News Corporation, headed by Rupert Murdoch, is loved by most of the readers of Slashdot as the owner of Fox News and as the company which put the overly complicated paywall on the Wall Street Journal. The article states that the charges 'would be hard for the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission to ignore and would warrant investigation under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act which could lead to risks for 27 TV licences within the Fox network.'"
Re:The FCC has no control over fox news on sat / c (Score:5, Informative)
yeah, you were misreading (or not reading) TFA:
The latest legal difficulties to hit News Corporation could also potentially have ramifications on its 27 TV licences within the Fox network â" the real financial heart of the operation. Three of the licences are up for renewal, and in August the ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) filed a petition with the US broadcasting regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, that called for them to be denied on the grounds that the company did not have the requisite character to run a public service.
The FCC is being asked to deny renewal for 3 of the 27 Fox licences. Whatever regulates the sat/cable industry might be asked to consider if Fox is a reputable enough company to own a licence to broadcast - the UK has such requirements, and I can't really believe the US has a totally deregulated media industry (a corrupt one, maybe).
Anyway, keep your eyes open, this time next week the Leveson Inquiry publishes its report [telegraph.co.uk] into News Corp.
Re:The FCC has no control over fox news on sat / c (Score:5, Informative)
So an incident in a subsidiary branch 6000 miles away from the US should induce major headaches for a US-based organization at the hands of the US government.
That's what often happens. For one, foriegn bribes are illegal in the US. That is to say, if a fooreign subsidiary uses bribery, it is a crime (under US law) that can be charged against the parent company. That's why one company I worked for with more than 30 foreign subsidiaries had very very liberal expense accounting. You were expected to pay for bribes yourself, then charge them back as "dinner" or such, no receipt needed, and unprosecutable as far as the feds are concerned.
It was a requirement of doing business, as some countries require bribes. One specific example would have a US analog of:
What would you do if the Elbonia TSA made you pay $5 to get your laptop bin back at the security check? They are government employees, so slipping them $5 for your laptop would be a federal crime in the USA.
So yeah, if he gets convicted of bribery in the UK, then his company is on the hook for breaking the foreign corrupt practices act, and should lose all US licenses.
Why do you want to reward people who break the rules, so long as they break them creatively enough to satisfy you?
Re:I wouldn't hold my breath. (Score:5, Informative)
Dear Slashdot,
You've heard of the phrase "Pot calling the Kettle Black", right? Slashdot has no standing to call anyone else "biased".
You seem to have difficulty distinguishing between having an opinion about something and just plain Making Shit Up.
When someone has an opinion, no matter how tenuous, they have at least implicitly accepted that there is such a thing as objective reality, which gives you something to argue about.
When someone simply invents their own reality, then there's no common ground for argument or understanding.
And Slashdot, contrary to your construction of it, is far more diverse in its opinions than you seem to think. But when a collective bias does show (e.g. in anti-Microsoft diatribes), it's generally[*] based on commonly-held opinions that are derived from experience. My anti-Microsoft bias comes from trying to write and support stable server-based applications on an MS platform in the late '90s. Security and stability were such shit at that time that I moved to Linux simply in order to maintain my sanity (and professional reputation).
So, there may actually be pots and kettles here, but not where you're looking for them; comparing Slashdot to Fox is apples to oranges.
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[*] Generally. Statistically, there is a small but vocal cadre of clueless idiots in every group of a sufficient size.
Re:Well one thing is certain... (Score:4, Informative)
I loved Futurama's return after being cancelled. They were quite blatant with the insults against Fox.
http://www.comedycentral.com/video-clips/mw3sok/futurama-back-in-action [comedycentral.com]
http://theinfosphere.org/Box_Network [theinfosphere.org]
Re:More moronic anti-Fox ranting (Score:2, Informative)
. No president in modern US history has taken this arrogant attitude toward people who disagree with him.
Except, of course, Herr Bush, with his infamous "Either you're with us, or you're against us", without so much as a possibility of an ignorant, uninformed middle ground where people needed to be persuaded.
Arrogance. That was George Dubyah, for certain.
Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I don't like Obama very much. I've repeated that several times, in several places - I've probably said it here before. But, as big an ass as Obama is, he is far less revolting than Herr Bush was. Bush the Crusader. "I don't understand, why do those Ay-rabs hate me for calling for a crusade?"
That was one IGNORANT and arrogant jackass!
Re:More moronic anti-Fox ranting (Score:5, Informative)
"Dude", it's every-bit as much of a news outlet as ABC,NBC,CBS,CNN,MSNBC, the NYT
What if it's not?
You just don't like any news story that runs contrary to your beliefs
What if it has nothing to do with beliefs? What if they are just objectively bad, but you don't want to think so because your beliefs agree with those broadcast by Fox News. Personally, I'm mostly politically moderate. I don't agree with the Loony Left or the Rabid Right and Fox News (the channel) appears to be objectively one of the worst News channels out there because they mix propaganda in with real news. In their 24 hour days they have around 7 or 8 hours of real informational (only a little politically slanted) news, but that means they have 16-17 hours of "opinion" programming (political propaganda) each day. It's not just me, Fox news watchers have consistently scored poorly on knowledge tests about current events. In at least one such test they scored lower than people who actively read and watched no news content. That should be a troubling result.
Frankly, if you're going to accuse everyone who disagrees with you of being biased, you'd better be doing a pretty good job of making sure you account for your own biases, which you haven't, because from your comments you appear to be rabidly right wing. You might want to consider whether some of the things you've "learned" from Fox News might be actually be distorted but you aren't seeing it because of your political leanings.